


The seasons prayed around his knees

by angelinthecity



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Boarding School, Both Oliver and Elio are seventeen, Consensual Underage Sex, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, Roommates, Spin the Bottle, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29860716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelinthecity/pseuds/angelinthecity
Summary: There’s a new history professor at Oliver’s boarding school and, of course, he gets the professor’s son as a roommate. Luckily, Elio never rats Oliver out when he sneaks out to meet girls past the curfew, and all Elio seems to do is read. Until one evening, when Oliver’s night out gets cut short and he returns to his room—their room—earlier than expected.Oliver rolled them over again and slipped a hand under Elio’s shirt, feasting on the skin that had been off limits to him mere hours ago. The boy squirming under him seemed to be all elbows and knees, but Oliver realized that he really, really liked elbows and knees. A lot. Maybe that Rohmer guy had been onto something.A boarding school AU.[COMPLETED March 13, 2021]
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 167
Kudos: 192





	1. Tell me something about yourself

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to be working on another Elio/Oliver story, but I’ve also been on a bit of a boarding school kick lately, and that’s how this little story came to be, rather quickly and unplanned. 
> 
> **Please note** the warning for Underage. Even though it’s not specifically mentioned in the story, Oliver and Elio are both thought to be seventeen in this and there will be eventual mild smut (you know the type if you’ve read any of my other stories; I’m pretty predictable). Read only if you’re comfortable with that.

At first Oliver thought there was something wrong with him. He’d forced himself to go out every Saturday with Tony and the Italian sisters from St. Agnes, because that’s what he was supposed to be doing, enjoying himself, not staying back in his room, not even if he was weirdly intrigued by the latest book the boy in the other bunk was reading.

The boys at Larrow had an on-going joke that over the six years they were there, the roommates would all start to resemble each other, but Oliver had no intention of becoming Elio Perlman. Besides, the kid had only moved into his room at the start of the semester when his family had moved to town. His father was the new history professor at Larrow and because Theodore Walters had had to leave the school due to a mystery illness over the summer, there was now a spare bed in Oliver’s room on the third floor, with a perfect view of the orchard in front of the school.

Oliver had groaned about his room assignment loudly the first year, saying how he would’ve preferred a room on the other side, with a view to the football field or at least the south view where they could’ve spied on the girls going into the shop across the road. After all, that’s why Tony had secretly kept those binoculars they’d used at the bird excursion for the biology class. But in his heart, Oliver had started to enjoy the peaceful location at the end of the hallway, where one could see the sunrise. That is, until the new kid had arrived at the beginning of the school year.

Elio kept to himself, and while Oliver had figured that he wouldn’t want to stick out too much, being the professor’s son and all, it turned out that it wasn’t really that at all.

Elio simply enjoyed his own company, and while he didn’t shun the other boys trying to befriend him, he never sought their company either. Oliver first tried to invite him to things but he always had an excuse and in the end, sitting at their table for breakfast at the cafeteria was the most Elio had conceded to. Beyond that, he went to class, was in the Ancient Egypt club on Mondays and in the guitar club on Tuesdays, and then went back to his room—Oliver’s room—to dive into his books.

And boy, did the kid have books.

Oliver had watched when they’d brought in his luggage and there had been one suitcase of clothes and seven boxes of nothing but books. One guitar, one Walkman. No sports equipment.

Elio was always in bed already, when Oliver and his friends snuck in on the Saturday nights, climbing up the fire ladder because the doors had been closed at ten, smelling of the girls’ perfumes and if they were lucky, with traces of pink lipstick on their starched white collars.

Some of the boys were able to get into their rooms unnoticed—for instance, Tony bunked with George Austin, a notoriously heavy sleeper who was never the wiser that Tony missed the curfew every weekend—but Oliver wasn’t as lucky. There was always a light on in his room, with Elio under the covers but with a book in his lap, looking up from it as soon as Oliver nudged the door ajar, enough to slip in but not too much that it would’ve squeaked and alerted the teacher who was on hallway watch.

The first weekend, after finding Elio still awake, Oliver had thought that that was it for him. The professor’s son would surely rat him out and he’d be put under a tighter watch than the inmates at Her Majesty’s prisons. Oliver would have to kiss Chiara goodbye, figuratively, for the rest of the semester.

But Elio had barely looked up, only asked “Was it raining?”, when he’d seen that Oliver’s hair and shoulders were drenched.

“No. We just got caught in one of the sprinklers.”

“Okay.” That had been it and Elio had gone back to his book.

Oliver had changed out of his wet clothes, glancing at Elio to see if he was watching, because some of the boys were like that, but no, his eyes had been firmly fixed on the page, and he’d licked the pad of his forefinger to turn the page. When finally in a pair of dry pajamas, Oliver had slipped into bed.

“You’re not going to tell your father, are you?”

“Tell him what?”

“That I was out past curfew.”

“No, why would I?”

“No reason. I mean, we weren’t doing anything, really. Just walking. Getting some fresh air.”

“Right.”

Oliver hoped Elio couldn’t smell the liquor on him and buried himself under the covers. “Good night. And thanks, Perlman.”

“Good night.”

It soon became a familiar occurrence, Elio with the light on and Oliver sneaking in after hours, usually only slightly drunk, except for that one time in late October when Tony had managed to smuggle an entire bottle out with him. The girls had been lightweights, which meant that there’d been more for him and Oliver. They’d been out longer than usual, too, and when Oliver came back in, Elio was not in bed but standing by the window, looking out to the orchard.

He went to close the door behind Oliver, who stumbled loudly on Elio’s book bag by the door, but in his state of inebriation, didn’t find it incriminating but terribly funny. He’d also found it funny to take off all of his clothes at once, and after he’d barely managed to slip his feet through their respective pajama legs, he’d sat on Elio’s bed. The kid had cozied back up with his book at some point while Oliver was wrestling with the buttons of his clothes: he wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened.

“What are you reading?”

Elio flipped the book over to show him the cover.

“ _The Hidden Tales of the Egyptian Kings_. Is that for your club thing?”

“You were out later than usual.”

Oliver looked at the red digits on the alarm clock. “Oh, what do you know. Why, were you worried?”

“No,” Elio sounded defensive. “Not really.”

“We’re not doing any crimes, you know. Just having fun. The girls of St. Agnes are fun. Well, some of them.”

“I bet.”

“You should come with us some time.”

“Right.”

“No, I mean it. It would do you good to experience some real life, beyond these ancient tombs.”

He picked up Elio’s book from his hand and started leafing it through the pages. Elio tried to get it back but Oliver held it out of his reach. He showed Elio the page with King Tutankhamun’s likeness on it.

“See, this dead fellow is no match for the curves of the Italian girls. I’m seeing one, I should know. Her name is Chiara. She has a younger sister, too, who isn’t too keen on Tony. She might go for you, though.”

Oliver looked at Elio from head to toe, from the top of his untamed curls and over his slim chest, down to his knobby knees and slender toes. Elio pulled the covers over himself.

“Well, I don’t know.”

“No, don’t be too modest. Sure, your muscle mass could be better, but you have that whole smart thing going for you, and your hair’s not too bad. Girls love hair.” Oliver leaned in for emphasis, grabbed a handful of Elio’s hair to prove his point.

“I think we should go to bed now,” Elio said and turned off the light.

Oliver rolled his eyes in the dark and stumbled into his own bed, but sleep escaped him with the alcohol still running wild in his veins.

“So what’s that Egyptian club all about? You read about mummies and pharaohs and stuff?”

“Pretty much.”

“No, I really want to know. What’s the whole thing with the curse, for example?”

“You know about the curse.” It was a statement but it sounded like a question to Oliver.

“Of course. Everyone knows about the curse, Perlman.”

“There isn’t really one, it’s just an urban legend. And even if there was, I don’t think of it as a curse. More like a rightful revenge of the pharaohs. What right do people think they have, digging them up from their final resting places? I mean, we’re not digging up Elvis or John Lennon, either.”

“Maybe we should,” Oliver quipped.

"Really, when you think about it,” Elio continued, incensed. “These were people who deserved to rest in peace and intended to do so, until the archeologists took it upon themselves to trespass and steal their bodies and earthly belongings in the name of science, and put them up for show.”

“Weren’t there grave robbers before that, too? In the ancient times already?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’m not quite as stupid as you take me for.”

“I don’t take you for stupid.”

“Really?” Even in the dark, Oliver’s voice dripped with so much sarcasm that Elio couldn’t have missed it.

“I don’t.”

A silence.

Normally, Oliver would never have asked, because why would he care what the professor’s kid thought of him, but he was drunk and it was dark and what did it matter? “So what do you take me for?”

More silence. “Popular.”

“That’s not a personality trait.”

“Social, then. Smarter than you let people on. Attentive.”

“Attentive?”

“You don’t think anyone noticed, but I saw you give your brand-new football boots to Luke, when he tore up his.”

Luke Hutchinson was at Larrow on a scholarship, and Oliver couldn’t have let him quit the team just because his family couldn’t afford to buy him more than one pair every other school year. So Oliver had told his own father that he’d lost his, and a few days later there’d been a package waiting for him in the mail room. But he hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it, hadn’t wanted to draw attention to it so that Luke wouldn’t be embarrassed, and he hadn’t thought that anyone would’ve noticed. In the dark, he felt his temples burning.

“How did you know?”

“I pay attention when you guys don’t think I’m even there. But don’t worry, no one else knows. Your tough guy reputation is safe.”

The next Saturday, there was a sign on the door of the movie theater: _Closed due to water damage_. Which meant that Oliver, Tony, and the girls had to cancel their outing.

Elio was still sitting by his desk when Oliver returned. It wasn’t even past curfew yet.

“Hello, Perlman.”

Elio turned around, startled, and slammed his book shut.

Oliver laughed. “What were you reading? Something unsavory for young eyes?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me. There can’t be anything in there that would shock me, trust me.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Fine, I’ll find out for myself, then.” Oliver snagged the book and flopped on his bed.

“Give it back.” Elio sat firmly by the desk, and Oliver pretended not to see his stern look.

“Come and get it.”

“Oliver.”

His ultimatum got no response, so Elio was forced to get up and cross the room to try and snatch it back, but Oliver was faster and slipped under the covers, hiding the book behind his back.

“Oliver!”

Oliver knew he’d give the book back eventually, but he found himself enjoying the firm tone the kid had taken. He also said Oliver’s name differently than anyone else, like there was an extra ‘L’ hiding in there that only he’d found out about.

Elio surged to reach behind Oliver, but he was once again faster, stashing the book in his lap under the plaid duvet cover.

“You think I’m not going to go for it now, don’t you?”

“Well, let’s see, Perlman. Will you?” Oliver sat in his bed, one arm visible over the duvet and one underneath with the book. He was surprised that Elio had it in him to grab the edge of the duvet and pull it back.

Oliver held the book tightly over his lap and Elio grabbed it, tugged at it, but Oliver’s hours on the football field had paid off, and he was stronger.

“Fine, keep it then.” Elio raised his palms and left, visibly baffled as to how Oliver could’ve been so interested in a single book.

“I’ll give it back to you on one condition,” Oliver called after him.

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“You tell me something about yourself.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know nothing about you, even though I’ve slept in the same room with you for two months.”

“There’s nothing to know about me,” Elio shrugged.

“All I know is that you’re an American, by way of Italy and France, and you have a guitar that you never play. You get up early and go to bed late and I don’t know how you manage to get good marks while you never seem to sleep. You eat only the honey cereal. If they’re out of it, you’ll skip breakfast. And you wrap that freak front strand of your hair around your finger when you think someone is looking at you and you don’t want them to. Like right now,” Oliver nodded.

Elio let go of the curl. “I didn’t know you’ve mapped out my habits.”

“You’re not the only one who can pay attention. Oh, and you like your books more than you like people.”

“That’s not true,” Elio said.

“Name one person you like more than you like this book,” Oliver said and waved his acquired treasure. It was just a push to get Elio to open up, to say anything that might’ve let Oliver in on what the hell was going on in the head of that kid, but to his great surprise, Elio blushed.

“My parents, for starters,” he then said.

“Talking about your parents makes you blush?”

“Can I get my book back now?”

“No. You still haven’t told me anything about you.”

“Oliver!” Elio groaned and flopped back on his bed, frustrated. Oliver liked that tone, too. Maybe he just liked hearing his name, in all of the ways Perlman and his Italian accent said it.

“One fact,” Oliver insisted. “Just one.”

“Fine. My favorite film director is Éric Rohmer.”

“See, was that so difficult?” Oliver got up from his bed and returned the book to Elio with a fancy bow.

The next Saturday the girls had insisted Oliver and Tony take them out for a proper dinner, instead of the usual movie and ice cream combo. Oliver was in the room, trying to decide between two shirts, when Elio came in.

“Which one?” Oliver asked, holding up a white polo shirt and a light blue button-down. “The polo is sportier—and the girls like that—but the button-down makes me look smarter.”

Elio took a look at both of them, eyes going from one to the other and then back. “I think they’re both fine.”

“What if I modeled them for you? If that makes a difference?”

Elio shrugged, dropped his book bag by the bed and sat down.

Oliver took off his t-shirt and wriggled himself into the white polo. “This is a little tight. Either there’s been something wrong with the wash or I’ve had too many pizza nights.”

Elio made a contemplative noise. “Let me see it from the back.”

Oliver turned around obediently and Elio narrowed his eyes.

“And how about the other one?”

Oliver took off the polo and suddenly started to feel self-conscious under Elio’s attentive eyes. He was, despite his pizza joke, in a good shape, so it wasn’t that. He decided to ignore his momentary lack of confidence and focused on the tiny buttons of the blue shirt, he’d gotten one of them wrong already and had to start over.

Elio tilted his head. “I like this one, too. But like you said, Chiara might like the other one more.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver did a spin in the blue shirt, too, liking the fact that just once Elio was paying attention to him and not his pharaohs.

“Yes. Go with the white one.”

Tony started drinking from the bottle he’d pocketed from his uncle as soon as they were out of the gate. Oliver took only one long gulp, which proved wise as it turned out that whatever the stuff was, it was much stronger than usual. Tony started throwing up before they’d even made it to the restaurant, and Oliver had to take him back to the school.

The girls were livid and Oliver knew he should’ve been disappointed, too, but he found that he didn’t really mind. Maybe staying in for one Saturday wasn’t so bad. And Elio would be there, so it wouldn’t be completely boring.

Oliver knocked now before coming in, in case Elio was reading his dirty book again. Oliver had named it that, to Elio’s great annoyance.

“Who is it?”

“Just me.”

“Come in.”

“Apparently that director of yours made a movie that was about a woman’s knee,” Oliver announced as he toed off his loafers. “Did you know that? An entire movie about touching someone’s knee.”

Elio turned around at his desk. “Did you look up Éric Rohmer?”

“His name came up when we were out.” It was only a slight lie. It had involved Oliver asking the school librarian if she knew anything about a director of that name and then spending an hour in the section of the library that she’d pointed him to. But technically, it could’ve come up when they were out with the girls. Chiara was from the continent, she could’ve known about those kinds of films.

“His name came up? With Tony, the most uncultured boy here?”

Oliver ignored the insult on his friend. It wasn’t like Elio was wrong, exactly. “Are knees a thing for you? Is that why you like him? Maybe your dirty book only has pictures of the pharaohs’ knees.”

Elio rolled his eyes but had to smile. “He has a lot of other movies, too.”

“Are they perhaps about someone’s nose? Or ears?” Oliver leaned in close on his way to his wardrobe and rubbed the shell of Elio’s ear in passing, quickly before Elio could slap his hand away.

Oliver squeezed himself out of the tight polo and changed into a comfortable t-shirt, but when he went to put the polo back in the closet, the blue button-down he’d tried on earlier fell out.

Oliver picked it up and hung it again, fastening all the buttons so that it would stay on the slippery hanger. _How strange_ , he thought, he could’ve sworn he’d already done that before leaving for dinner, but maybe he just remembered it wrong. He shrugged and decided not to give it any more thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <3 The second part has already been written, and I’ll post it after the weekend.
> 
> In addition to a boarding school kick, I’ve also been on an Emily Dickinson kick after watching the show _Dickinson_ and the title is from her poem _The Mountain._


	2. You started it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the updated chapter count :)

And so when the girls suggested a raincheck for the dinner the next weekend, giving Tony an ultimatum not to drink anything before they got there, Oliver thought there must’ve been something wrong with him when he found himself contemplating whether he’d like to go or not.

Tony had just stared at him, boggled. “What kind of question is that? Of course we’re going!”

“I guess. But I flunked my history test last time and can’t afford to do it again next week. I should probably stay back and study. Elio has promised to help me,” he lied. “You see, he knows how Pro Perlman thinks and can therefore probably guess what will be on the test. I have an insider on the job.”

Elio looked equally puzzled when Oliver gave him the same explanation—without the part about Elio helping him, of course.

“But you didn’t flunk the test.”

“I did. And how would you even know anything about that?

“Because my father said that you’re one of his best students.”

A swirl of dread rushed into Oliver’s chest. “You talk about me with your father?”

Elio hummed. “You’re my roommate. Your name comes up, sometimes.”

“What does he say?” What Oliver actually wanted to ask was what Elio had said about him, but that would’ve been weird.

“Not much. Just that you should take school more seriously, but he thinks that maybe it’s because the class just isn’t challenging enough for you.”

“He shouldn’t be talking about the other students with you.”

“He didn’t say anything more specific,” Elio defended his father.

“Still.”

Oliver felt uneasy. Perlman and his father, discussing him? He huffed to himself. What would that have been like, had he talked about his roommate with his own father? Said that there’s this new kid, who insists on being mysterious and I can’t figure him out. Who doesn’t play football, doesn’t join in for our escapades with the girls, who knows more about European directors and Egyptian kings than anyone I know, but who keeps everything so close to his heart that sometimes I just want to shake him and—

“So why did you stay in, really?” Elio interrupted Oliver’s imaginary discussion with his father. “I know it’s not to study history. You’re far ahead of all the others.”

“Can’t a guy decide to stay in, for one weekend? To hang out with his roommate, to try and get to know him?” Oliver threw his arm over Elio’s shoulders.

“Oh, we’re back at this again.” Elio rolled his eyes.

Oliver ignored his reluctance and got up. “I have an idea.“ He went to rummage in the box at the bottom of his wardrobe, and came back with a bottle that had a splash of dark rum still in it. Like a gentleman, he offered to share the last drop with Elio, but he declined. Oliver downed it himself, before putting the cork back on.

“Let’s play.”

Elio watched him from the bed. “I’m not going to play with you.”

“Why not? It’ll be fun.” Oliver sat down on the floor and placed the bottle in front of him, pointing at Elio.

“You just want an excuse to ask me things,” Elio guessed, quite correctly.

“So? What’s so bad about that? You can ask me things, too. It’s called bonding. We have the whole year ahead of us before you’ll be free of me and this school, so it would be good to get to know each other.”

“Have you been talking to my father? Has he told you that I need to be more social?”

“He’s not exactly wrong.”

“So you have been talking to him?” Elio’s voice got higher.

“No, I haven’t,” Oliver tried to calm him down. “But he’s a wise man if he says that and I agree with him. You should come with the rest of us more often. You’d like us if you just gave us a chance. Tony’s not terrible all the time, and I’m of course a delight.”

He grinned and waved the bottle at Elio, who still stared at him from the bed, but Oliver could see his resolve starting to soften. “If you do this, I’ll leave you alone for a whole week.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“No snatching my books, no mocking my taste in films, no questions about whom I like in the school?”

“No snatchings, no questions,” Oliver confirmed. “But the film thing I cannot promise, because really, that’s way too weird. A knee? Come on, man.”

Elio sighed and climbed down to the floor, shuffled himself to sit across from Oliver.

Oliver beamed. “You can go first.”

Elio made the bottle spin on the hard floor and it swayed until it finally ended up pointing at the door. “See, this makes no sense since there are only two of us.”

“You want me to invite more people?” Oliver suggested, but found himself oddly relieved when Elio cried out immediately: “No, heavens no.”

“It just makes no sense, like right now, when the bottle points at no one,” he added.

“Oh, I have a solution.” Oliver got up, grabbed his school tie from the knob of the wardrobe and smoothed it neatly on the floor between them. “We can use this as a marker. If the neck points at anything on your side, it’s my turn to ask you a question. And vice versa.”

The tie split the floor—and effectively, the room—into two sections and the neck of the bottle was now on Elio’s side. “That’s not fair, you placed it so that the bottle would stay on my side.”

“The rules are the rules,” Oliver shrugged.

Elio looked at his hands. “Fine.”

Oliver eyed him and then the lacquered guitar in the corner. “Here’s the question. Why don’t you ever play your guitar?”

Elio glanced back at his instrument. “I do play it. Every Tuesday in the guitar club.”

“I meant, why don’t you play it here, in the room? I’d like to hear it.”

“You only get one question. The rules are the rules. Spin,” Elio nodded at the bottle.

Oliver groaned but made the bottle spin. It ended up pointing at Elio’s side again.

This time, Oliver didn’t need time to think. “Play something for me.”

“That’s not a question.”

“I changed the rules, it can be a dare, too. Play something. Doesn’t have to be long. I just want to hear.”

Elio trudged over to the corner to pick up the guitar and sat down on the bed with it. His fingers found the strings easily, so easily that it made Oliver a little bit jealous. “This is Bach. But he never wrote it for the guitar.”

“I don’t mind.”

Elio seemed to leave the room for his own world when he started playing, creating a flow of chords effortlessly and without any stumbles. He played a little fragment of a piece that Oliver could tell would’ve gone on longer, but he didn’t want to push it.

“There you go,” Elio said and went to put the guitar back in the corner.

“You’re really good,” Oliver said and meant it.

“Not anymore. I used to be better.”

“No, that was really good. I’m giving you a compliment, Perlman, just take it.”

Elio looked up, one side of his smile pursing like he didn’t know what to do with his lips. Oliver had seen him smile at him amused, or sarcastic, but this was new. It was almost shy, and Perlman wasn’t shy. Even if he kept to himself, he was bold when he wanted to. Most of the time he just didn’t want to.

“Thank you,” Elio said simply and then grabbed the bottle. “My turn.”

After spinning, it landed now in Oliver’s court.

“Why didn’t you go to dinner with Tony and the girls tonight?”

“Wow, playing hard ball right off the bat. I at least eased you in with the guitar question.”

“Why is it hard ball? It’s a simple question and I’m curious. You’ve been out every Saturday since I came here, so obviously the break in the pattern interests me.” Elio crossed his arms and tilted his head, waiting.

“I already told you. I wanted to hang out,” Oliver said but Elio’s perceptive gaze made him uneasy. It was the truth, so why did his cheeks feel hot? Oliver rubbed his face.

“With me? Of all people? Not Stephen from your English class, for example.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Stephen is an idiot.”

“And you don’t think I am? An idiot?”

The question caught Oliver off guard, so he blurted before thinking: “Of course not. You’re the smartest one in the whole school.”

Elio kept looking at him, and Oliver didn’t know why he kept digging himself a deeper grave, but he heard himself muttering: “But you make me feel like an idiot most of the time, instead. With your Bach, and French films, and all.”

Elio’s demeanor softened, he unfolded his arms and rested his hands in his lap. “I haven’t meant to.”

“I know you haven’t, that’s what’s so infuriating about it. You just—breathe smart, without even trying,” Oliver huffed.

“Is that why you’ve been so hard on me? Because I infuriate you?

Oliver tilted his head back and sighed. He was starting to regret suggesting the game in the first place. “You don’t infuriate me.”

“What then?”

“I think you’ve had way more than one question by now. My turn.”

This time, the bottle pointed directly at Oliver again.

“This game is rigged,” he muttered.

Elio asked him gently, as if realizing that neither of them wanted to go there but that they had to. “Do you hate me?”

Oliver looked up and Elio stared right into his eyes, bold, but the soft click of his swallow was a tell that the answer wasn’t unimportant to him.

Oliver smiled, meant it to be comforting, but was afraid it might have come off as sad, instead. “I most definitely don’t hate you. Sometimes I do think that you hate me, though.“

Elio reached over the makeshift border to touch Oliver on the knee. “I don’t hate you. Not at all. I—” He pulled his hand back.

“But you never want to join me and the others anywhere, when I ask you.”

“That’s not why I—” Elio shook his head and kept staring at his hands in his lap. Finally he looked up, flushed, and Oliver raised his brow, waiting. The earlier playful air of bantering had given way to something charged and neither of them said anything, waiting for the other to lose the game of chicken first. Elio’s eyes, darkened by his thick lashes, traveled over Oliver’s face, stopping briefly at his mouth until he lowered his gaze again.

Oliver cleared his throat and a part of him wanted to push it, to squeeze some kind of explanation out of Elio, but the other part of him realized that he would’ve needed to give one himself, too, and it was a box he wasn’t ready to open. Not yet.

“Maybe we shouldn’t play anymore,” he said and Elio nodded.

Oliver picked up the bottle and rolled up the tie. “I’ll go see if Stephen wants to watch the game.”

Oliver came back to the room much later. His team had lost and Stephen’s won, but that wasn’t what was on his mind when he opened the door, this time without knocking first. Maybe he was hoping to catch Elio doing something, anything that would’ve shed some light on what was going on, without Oliver having to look into himself or, heaven forbid, bring it up with Elio.

However, the room was dark, with no lights on. There was a human-shaped mound of duvet on Elio’s bed and Oliver tried to be quiet, getting out of his jeans and into his pajamas. He fumbled and dropped his belt, the buckle clanging when it hit the wooden floor and he cursed.

“It’s okay, I’m not asleep,” came softly from Elio’s bed.

“Sorry.”

Oliver locked the door for the night and slipped into bed. Those rare times when Elio fell asleep before him, he could hear the steady breathing from the other side of the room, but there was no such sound tonight. Oliver couldn’t get any sleep either.

“Stephen’s team won,” he said after a while. “He rubbed it in my face.”

“Well, Stephen’s an idiot.”

Oliver smiled in the dark. He decided now would be as good a time as any to make amends. He’d forced Elio to play the game and it hadn’t turned out well for either of them, so it was his fault that things were awkward now.

“I do like you.”

The words hung in the darkness, waiting for Elio to accept them, and Oliver hoped—so much—that he would.

Then: “I like you too, Oliver.”

There were sounds of shuffling, of duvet being rearranged. “We’re never going to talk about these things, are we?”

Oliver didn’t want to understand what Elio meant, even though he very well did. That’s exactly what he’d planned to do: to never talk about it. Because he didn’t know what to do with it, it had thrown him off completely, these weird pricklings when Elio granted him a smile or a nugget of personal information, and now he didn’t even want to leave for town with the girls if the other option was to spend the evening in the room, with Elio around. Still, he thought best to pretend.

“Talk about what things?” He wanted to be good and if he kept denying it, maybe it’d go away. The worst that could happen would be that Elio found out, because then he’d have no excuse to fight it anymore.

“You know what things.”

Turned out it was too late to pretend or deny or whatever Oliver had tried to do. Elio had wiggled his way through all his defenses, seen right through him and even though this was wrong, and no one could ever find out, Elio was right there with him, sitting in the same troubled ditch, like two bank robbers who’d gotten away with their escape from the crime scene but were now sitting on their bags of money without knowing where to go.

Oliver’s heart pounded. “Why are you saying all this?”

“Because you started it. And there’s no one I can say this to but you.”

Oliver’s head was spinning like the bottle earlier. He needed to nip this in the bud, before he’d let himself start wanting. He couldn’t want. He needed to be good.

“We can’t do anything, Elio.”

Elio sounded startled. “Had you actually—thought about doing something?”

The only light they had came from the yard, creating a soft beam across the room, and Oliver closed his eyes to hide from his thoughts. Had Oliver thought about doing something? Had he thought of coming in one Saturday, climbing into Elio’s bed next to him while he was still reading? Resting his chin on Elio’s slight shoulder? Had he thought about wiping that smile of superiority from Elio’s face with his own mouth? Absolutely not.

“Sometimes.” Oliver’s voice broke and he cursed himself.

The shuffling stopped in the other bed and the room fell silent, so silent that Oliver swore that Elio must’ve heard his heartbeat. He surely did, as the blood rushed up to his ears, thinking this was it, Elio could not go without reporting this to his father, and Oliver would have to leave, go the way of Theodore Walters, and he’d never get to fall asleep in the same room with Elio again.

Just when he thought that he’d have to go and live in exile for the rest of his life, because his father would most definitely send him away when he’d hear about it, the silence in the room was broken. Softly, curiously.

“What did you think about?”

The blood that had roared at Oliver’s ears now rushed back down, down, down, all the way down to between his legs.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Want me to start?”

That took the air out of Oliver’s lungs. He didn’t know what was happening. Was Elio going to— There was positively no blood left in Oliver’s brain and he wondered whether it was possible to faint while lying down. “Sure.”

No, he wasn’t going to hold onto it, he kept telling himself. He would just press his palm against the base, willing it to go down.

“You know how you keep stealing my books?”

“Yes.” _Yes._

“I sometimes imagine that I would wrestle you, to get them back.”

Oliver was quiet, hoping he’d continue. _Please, continue._

“On the floor. Or on your—bed.”

“And?” Oliver held his breath.

“And,” Oliver could practically hear the smile in Elio’s voice, heady from the fact that he had his audience hanging onto his every word. “And we would wrestle, and wrestle, and I would end up beneath you on the bed. And you would not give the book back, but I wouldn’t care. Not about the book, at least.”

“What would you care about?” Oliver forced himself to say, even though forming words was becoming strained.

“You. The press of your thigh. Your knee digging into my side as you straddled me.” Oliver swallowed. _God, the kid had a way with words._ “You know, to hold me—down.”

Despite his grand resolutions, Oliver came in his hand, soaking through his underwear. It was impossible to do it quietly, no matter how he tried, and a noise escaped, traveled across the room, and was met by: “Oliver?”

“Yes?” was all he managed, as his brain was racing to think how he could possibly wipe his hand on something without Elio noticing.

“Want to do that to me, too?”

Oliver turned on the nightlight. Elio was lying on his side, hands tucked under his cheek on the pillow, watching him. Oliver grabbed the box of tissues from under his bed and wiped his hand, put the box back.

“Do what?”

Elio didn’t reply, so Oliver got up, crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed. “You finally used up all of your words, huh?”

Elio rolled over to lay on his back, arms above his head like one of those sleeping cherubs in the museums Oliver’s mother had dragged him to. That is, if the cherub was awake and had just made Oliver come with merely his voice.

“Anything you like,” the cherub said.

Oliver groaned. He was still soft, but at this rate, it wouldn’t be long until he’d be hard again.

“You’re killing me, Perlman.”

“I hope not.”

Oliver reached out and touched Elio’s chin with his thumb. “I’d like to kiss you, for starters. If that’s alright?”

Elio nodded. “Yes, please.”

Oliver leaned down and Elio’s eyelids fell shut way before Oliver’s lips ever reached his, and Oliver got to see the lashes trembling in anticipation, Elio’s top and bottom lip parting ever so slightly. There was no taste of lipstick, no perfume in the air. Just the softness of Elio’s mouth, and tongue, both yielding to him, then his arms wrapping around Oliver’s neck, pulling him fully onto the bed. Oliver kissed him again, and again, and again.

Again.

Finally he pulled back to catch his breath and Elio looked up at him, lips grazing Oliver’s chin.

“You want to know what part I was reading that night you came in? In the dirty book?”

“That’s what you want to talk about right now?” Oliver buried his face in Elio’s neck, hoping to make him forget about the books for once.

Elio made a noise that was more a reaction to Oliver’s lips than to his question, but then he wiggled himself from under Oliver and reached for his desk, pulled out _The Hidden Tales of the Egyptian Kings_ from the pile of books.

Oliver sat back on his elbows as Elio leafed through the book. He found the right chapter and held the book open for Oliver to see.

“King Neferkare and general Sasenet”, Oliver read.

Elio pointed at a picture of the two Egyptian men. “This is a tale of King Neferkare. He left his palace every night to go and visit his general officer in his house. He spent the four deepest hours of the night there, and returned home before dawn.”

“And what might have he done there?”

“The tale says,” Elio lowered his voice to a whisper and spoke the words into Oliver’s ear. “That the king did to the general whatever his majesty desired.”

Oliver took the book from Elio and let it fall on the floor. “I’m beginning to understand why your nose is always in the books.”

Elio ignored him, and instead, slid lower on the bed, mouth now at Oliver’s clavicle. “I would really like you to be the king. Just for one night.”

Oliver rolled them over again and slipped a hand under Elio’s shirt, feasting on the skin that had been off limits to him mere hours ago. The boy squirming under him seemed to be all elbows and knees, but Oliver realized that he really, really liked elbows and knees. A lot. Maybe that Rohmer guy had been onto something.

“Could you do that? Please?” Elio breathed into the curve of Oliver’s shoulder.

Oliver’s response was to tug at his shirt until it came all the way off.

“Off, off, off,” he hummed as Elio helped him take off the pajama pants as well, leaving him only in his underwear. There was a wet patch in the cotton, letting Oliver know that the earlier story time hadn’t gone unnoticed by Elio’s crotch either. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband and checked with Elio who nodded feverishly.

Oliver had never done this. He’d never even had this done to himself; he hadn’t gone very far with Chiara because there was hardly any privacy at their Saturday outings, the others always hovering nearby. So, he had to go with his instinct. He’d seen a tape that Tony had stolen from his uncle, but the technicalities could not have prepared him for what he felt when he was faced with Elio and the sea of emotions he had for him. Elio was trusting him with this, in more ways than one, and he wanted to do well, do perfectly, make him feel all the things Elio had made him feel, not just tonight, but since he’d arrived in his room—their room.

What Oliver wasn’t prepared for, was how quickly it was over. He probably should have seen it coming, but on the tape it always lasted longer than that.

He’d barely closed his lips around the head and let Elio slide deeper into his mouth, when Elio’s thighs tightened, and he started to squirm so much that Oliver had to hold him in place.

Over the years, they would perfect their signaling, but on that first night there was almost no warning before Elio came into his mouth and seemed to like it so much that Oliver wanted to keep him there, and kept sucking him through it. Spontaneously, he kissed the crease of Elio’s thigh at the end, and Elio’s hand came to rest in his hair.

“You have pretty great hair, too. No wonder Chiara likes you.”

Oliver crawled to the top of the bed, shuffled to lay on his side, with Elio looking up at him. It was crowded, on a bed meant for one boy only, but Oliver wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“Did you say that she had a sister?” Elio asked, eyes twinkling.

“Who, Chiara? Yes. Marzia. She’s a year younger, I think.”

Elio bit on his lip to hide a smile. “Then maybe next Saturday I could—”

“Nope. No. I’m not going to introduce you to her,” Oliver announced, gathering Elio firmly against his chest.

Elio’s fingers played with the collar of Oliver’s t-shirt, for he was still fully clothed even though Elio was laying naked in his arms. Elio didn’t seem to mind, though, and Oliver suspected that he might have even preferred it that way.

“Why not? I thought you said that she might like me.”

“Oh, I have no doubt that she would. But I’m not going to let her have you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re mine now. All mine. Okay?”

Elio pulled at the shirt collar to find a place to bury his face against the skin. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been challenging for me to get any writing done lately, and when the idea of this story came to me, I was first just ecstatic to get at least something on ‘paper’, but then I ended up really liking these two boarding schoolers. 
> 
> So much so, in fact, that even though this story was originally supposed to end here after Chapter 2, I wanted to extend it a little bit and thus wrote an epilogue to add to this. There will be a time jump of a few months and I’ll post it later this week after I’ve edited it.
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely comments on the first chapter, I always love to hear what you think <3


	3. Epilogue: Two fools

It was on a Saturday, the seventh of December and a week before the fall term ended, that Oliver decided that he needed to not only come clean with Tony, but also break it off with Chiara. He’d skipped so many weekend outings on the excuse that he needed to study that even Tony, who planned to do nothing but live off his trust fund after they’d graduate, was starting to get worried about Oliver’s marks.

“Is there something going on with you, Oliver? Maybe you should you get a proper tutor, if Perlman doesn’t cut it anymore,” Tony had said, pinching a wad of chewing tobacco from his tin.

Something was definitely going on.

Oliver was falling head over heels with Elio, and it was a good thing that his tutoring excuse was only a ruse, because what happened in their room on Saturday nights couldn’t have been further from studying.

For the first few weeks, they’d done nothing but kissed and gotten each other off with their hands or mouths—Oliver was particularly partial to sucking Elio off, especially when Elio insisted that he was at a really intriguing place in his book and that he really, really wanted to finish this chapter first, and Oliver would take it as a challenge to get Elio to finish before the chapter did.

It was followed by more kissing, sometimes in daytime even though it was risky as anyone could’ve come in, but mostly at night when the doors were locked and Elio could come lie on top of Oliver in his bed, legs tangling between his and Oliver had a hard time deciding which one he liked more: the surprisingly firm weight of Elio on him or his clever mouth that made it to all kinds of places on Oliver’s neck. However, they were both bested by Elio’s tongue as soon as it peeked out and licked across Oliver’s mouth, from bottom lip to top, before slipping in and finding his.

It had been a rainy night, a regular Tuesday, when Elio had come back from the guitar club and Oliver had succeeded in getting him to play the same piece for him that they’d just rehearsed at the club. The door was still unlocked and they could hear people walking down the hallway, but Oliver had been so mesmerized that he’d reached over to kiss Elio behind his ear, and then whispered his suggestion to him.

Elio had swallowed, turned to look at him, eyes firmly fixed on Oliver’s mouth. He’d nodded and said with a dry throat: “Yes.”

The hour they had to wait until the lights were out felt longer than those two months at the beginning of the semester where they’d slept in the same room, both in their own beds, not knowing what to do with their escalating thoughts of each other.

During that hour, Oliver had changed his mind two or three times, and then back again, but Elio wouldn’t let him back off anymore.

“But what if I hurt you?”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Elio had been at his desk, smiling over to Oliver who’d laid in his bed, nervous, staring at the ceiling, and his gaze had been like a comforting caress over Oliver’s cheek. “Because you could never hurt me.”

Finally, the familiar call of good night had echoed in the halls, and the resident hall of Larrow had fallen silent. Oliver had bought the condoms with Tony already in the spring term, thinking it might get to that with Chiara one day if he was lucky, but the pack had been untouched until now.

“But I thought you two—” Elio said, with Oliver shaking his head.

“No. I’ve never done it with her. Or anyone else, you know. Just you.”

“Only me?”

“Only you.”

Elio spun around in his desk chair and pulled Oliver to him, holding his face. “I want to look at you forever but I also want to kiss you forever. What a conundrum.”

These were the kinds of things Oliver had had to get used to, because that’s how Perlman—Elio—spoke to him. In public, when they were around others, he’d be just as grumpy as ever, but all the pent-up tenderness burst out of him when they were alone.

“Where do you want to do it?” Oliver asked between kisses.

Elio stopped to think, glanced at his own bed and then at Oliver. “My bed. So that I can then think about it every night when I go to sleep and remember.”

Oliver rolled his eyes to cover up the feelings that the sentiment stirred in him, but kissed Elio on the nape as he pulled him up.

They turned off the nightlight because the darkness made it all feel safer somehow, and Oliver took off Elio’s clothes and then let him take off all of his, before they slid under the covers together.

“Are you nervous?” he asked when Elio wound himself up around his body like a vine, caressing, showing no signs of letting go.

“A little bit. Can you hold me for a while first?”

“We don’t have to do it,” Oliver said after a while, Elio still in his embrace.

“That’s not it. I want to. I just want to remember this, what it was like, before. Who I was, before you take me and make me a part of you. Oliver and Elio, one bed, one body.”

Oliver felt himself fill up already, Elio’s words tended to have that effect on him. He shifted, his hip bone pressing on Elio’s thigh and he let his hand glide down between them. Slowly, and slowing down further at every ridge, but then moving on when Elio did nothing to stop it.

“Can I?” he asked, finger finally at Elio’s opening.

Both Elio’s eyes and voice were clear as he looked at Oliver in the face. “Yes.”

The finger pushed inside, first a little and then more, and it had been a real fear of Oliver’s, of hurting Elio, so he wanted to do this right.

“Breathe,” he told Elio who seemed to have forgotten it for a moment, with the new sensations between his legs and from there, radiating through his body. He closed his eyes for a long time, breathing shallow and Oliver pulled his finger out, prompting Elio’s eyes to fling open.

“Why did you stop?”

“I thought that it was too much for you.”

“No, I can take it. Please?”

Oliver added a second finger and eventually they got to a point where Elio sat back on his elbows, watching Oliver put on the condom, fumbling with it only slightly.

Elio had lowered himself back onto the bed as Oliver climbed back in. He paused, Elio looking as innocent beneath him as he had on their first night together, even though over the past weeks, his innocence had proven to be a façade only.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Elio repeated from earlier, reading Oliver’s thoughts. “Come on now.”

The feeling was so intimate for both of them that it bordered on strange, and first Oliver wasn’t sure if it was worth all the nerves, but then Elio shifted and accidentally clenched his muscles and Oliver had to quickly think of his grandmother or he would’ve come right then and there.

“This is so good,” he exhaled, but Elio had closed his eyes again. “Elio? Is this okay?”

“I’m okay. It just,” Elio breathed in, “—feels full.”

Oliver had no way of imagining how he felt, and that’s how he instantly knew that he wanted Elio to do this to him, too, one day. And he wanted Elio to be able to feel this side of it too, how he made their bodies into one, and how this felt like a place where he’d always meant to get to. To be in.

Elio held him by the shoulders as he thrusted, gently, because Elio seemed so small and despite all his boldness, Perlman seemed to just once be vulnerable enough to not have a quick retort for him. Elio was there not only with him but for him, and he was very much there when Oliver came inside him.

“How was it?” Elio asked as Oliver rolled off of him breathless and flushed. He was curious, eager to hear if it had been what Oliver had hoped for.

“So good,” Oliver breathed, staring at the ceiling, then shuffling to stroke Elio on the chest, ribs, finding Elio still hard against his stomach. “I want you to do that to me, too.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

Oliver had wrapped his hand around Elio as he talked. “It was so great. You were warm, and felt so good, and tight, and soft—”

It didn’t take long for Elio to come in his hand, and as promised, he let Elio be his top the next night, and for the rest of the week they were both grinning around the grounds of Larrow like two fools.

But eventually Oliver’s weekend excuses didn’t cut it anymore for Tony, and Oliver knew he had to come clean to his friend. And to some extent, Chiara, too, who’d probably kept waiting for him to come to town one Saturday after the other, only to be disappointed every time.

Turned out that of the two of them, Chiara was the easy one.

Oliver and Tony had agreed to meet up with her and Marzia—for the last time, although Tony didn’t know it yet—at the movie theater. Oliver and Chiara had had a habit of letting their hands wander during the films, but now Oliver couldn’t bring himself to do it, and he pulled Chiara aside when the others went to get the popcorn.

“You see, Chiara, the thing is,” he started, but to his great surprise, the girl beat him to it.

“I knew it, you’re seeing someone else.”

“What?”

“I knew it, Marzia said I’m just imagining things, but I knew it. Well, just so you know, Oliver, I haven’t been resting on my laurels, either. Samuel Darcy has taken me to dinner two Saturdays in a row now, to that good place where you and Tony would never take us. The one with the steak.”

Samuel Darcy? The groundkeeper’s son? Oliver’s ego might have taken a hit by that had the situation been different, but now he was just happy that he had gotten away with it without having to tell Chiara everything or her arranging a scene.

“And you have someone else, don’t you?” she asked. “Not a St. Agnes girl because I would’ve heard about it, but from somewhere else?”

“Sort of,” Oliver admitted. It was close enough to the truth. “So I was thinking that when we go in there,” he pointed at the auditorium, “we might behave more like friends. None of that usual stuff.”

“Oh, of course not. Sam wouldn’t like for you to put your paws on me.”

And that was it.

_One down, one to go,_ Oliver thought, but Tony turned out to be more of a challenge.

Oliver kept putting the conversation off until the end of the evening, until he knew that they only had the last stretch of road left and after the bend they’d be back at Larrow. If he wanted to bring it up, now was the moment to do so.

“So, Tony. I need to talk to you about something, mate.”

“Alright, what is it?”

“I broke it off with Chiara tonight. So I won’t be doing these Saturday outings with you and them anymore.”

Tony thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright. Can I have a try at Chiara, then? Marzia doesn’t seem to be too into me.”

“Chiara’s already seeing Sam Darcy.”

“Darcy? The groundkeeper’s son?”

It was Oliver’s turn to shrug. “Girls, right?”

“Bummer.”

But that had been only half of the story. “But Tony, there’s another thing, too. And I need you to keep a secret for me, okay? No one at school can find out.”

“What is it? You’re starting to scare me, Oliver.” Tony looked genuinely worried. “Are you not able to graduate? Have those tutoring sessions with Perlman not paid off? I did tell you that you should get a proper one, didn’t I? Just because he’s the professor’s son, doesn’t mean he knows everything.”

“No, that’s not it. My marks are fine.”

“Well, thank goodness. That plan of ours, of moving to London after we get out of here, would go down the drain if you needed to repeat a year.”

“It’s not that. But you’re right, it is about Perlman.” Oliver’s nails pressed into his palm in his fist.

Tony stopped on the sidewalk. “Is he blackmailing you? He’s making you stay in your room an awful lot. Does he have something on you?”

“No.”

“Do you hate him, then? Is he an awful roommate? I’m sure we can get Mr. Cuthbert to let you trade. I saw him coming from Miss Walsh’s room one morning, so we can use that handy piece of information to—”

Oliver interrupted him. “No, that’s not it. I don’t hate Perlman. In fact, I like him.” Oliver looked up. “A lot.”

“I don’t understand. What is that supposed to mean?”

Oliver looked at Tony whose face showed no signs of understanding. “That I like Perlman—Elio—a lot. An awful lot. I stay in the room because I like being with him. And he likes being with me.”

Oliver waited as Tony’s brain cells started to make the connections. Tony’s mouth fell open but he quickly covered it with his pudgy hand, rubbed his chin.

“I see.” Tony started walking again and Oliver sprang after him.

“But you can’t tell anyone. My father can’t find out.”

Tony just nodded, but kept his eyes on the bend of the road ahead of them, not looking at Oliver.

“Tony? Please say something,” Oliver pleaded, when his friend had said nothing and they were about to make the turn towards the school. Once they were on the Larrow grounds, there would be no privacy to talk. “Are you upset?”

Tony stopped. “Am I upset? How long has this been going on?”

“A couple of months.”

“A couple of months? And you never thought to tell me?”

“I didn’t—”

“We’re supposed to be best friends, right? And I tell you every embarrassing detail of how Marzia’s kept rejecting me? Or Laura, the new breakfast waitress at the cafeteria? And all this time, you’ve had feelings for Perlman and you never told me. Where’s the sacred bond of friendship, Oliver, where?” Tony waved around in the cold December air.

Oliver began to catch on. “So you’re angry with me for not telling you? Not about me and Elio being together?”

“Of course! Wait, you thought I was mad at you for hooking up with Perlman? You really are an idiot, Oliver,” Tony sighed and wrapped his arm around his friend’s shoulders.

Oliver burst into a wide smile. “I probably am.”

“Not as big of an idiot as Stephen, but still.”

“Well, no one can beat him in that category.”

“That’s for sure.”

They walked down the road, arms around each other’s shoulders, until Tony thought of something. “So how’s the tutoring going, if you’re also dating? Isn’t there a conflict of interest, or something?”

Oliver looked sheepish. “He’s not really tutoring me.”

“Then why do you two stay behind every—oh, okay, I get it now. And no, I don’t want to hear any details.”

“I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

“We’ve established that alright.”

“Hey, Tony,” Oliver said, sincerely. “I’m sorry about not telling you sooner. But I was still figuring it all out for myself and didn’t really know how to deal with it.”

“That’s alright. Just promise me that next time you fall in love with someone, whether it’s someone from St. Agnes or from Larrow, you tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” Oliver promised, but added, with a happy smile as he realized it for himself: “I have no plans of falling out of love with Elio, though.”

“Mate, you’ve become sappy.”

“So, thanks, Tony. Good night,” Oliver said as he opened the door to his and Elio’s room. Elio was still at his desk, it wasn’t past curfew yet and the boys had been able to use the front entrance instead of the fire ladder to get in.

“Good night, Oliver. Good night, Perlman,” Tony called through the open door and Elio turned around, surprised. He looked from Tony to Oliver and back.

“Good night, Tony.”

“See you both at breakfast,” was the last thing they heard, as Tony was already on his way up to his room on the fourth floor.

Oliver closed the door. Elio watched him closely as he slipped off his shoes, hung up his jacket, flopped on the bed and started to leaf through the magazine he’d left there earlier.

“Oliver.”

“Yes?” he looked up from the David Bowie spread.

“You told him.”

“Told who what?”

“Tony. About us.”

“I might have. Is that bad?”

Elio scurried over to climb in his lap. “No, it’s very good. How did he take it?”

Oliver put away the magazine and rested his hands at Elio’s hips. “Pretty good. I also broke it off with Chiara, and he wanted dibs on her, but apparently she’s already been seeing Sam Darcy.”

“The groundkeeper’s son?”

“That’s him.”

Elio looked at him, incredulous. “That girl must be off her head. I could never even think of Sam Darcy if I had a chance with you.” He held Oliver’s face the way he always did, and Oliver liked it. An awful lot. “So Tony’s not going to tell anyone about us?”

“No. But he did make me promise to tell him sooner the next time I fall in love with someone.”

Even though it had been obvious for months that neither of them had eyes for anyone else but the other, those specific, important words hadn’t been spoken aloud in their room yet.

Oliver’s innocent slip registered for them both at the same time.

Elio’s fingers slid down from Oliver’s jaw, down to his neck. “The next time you—”

“I—”

“Are you—”

And Oliver realized that he was, he really was.

Elio swatted at him on the shoulder. “And you told Tony Gilmore before you told me?”

“I really can’t catch a break today, now, can I?” Oliver took hold of the hand that kept pushing him on the chest. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Elio’s face softened. “I forgive you. But you do need to make it up to me. You can start by saying it to me, properly.” Elio pulled back and crossed his arms, waiting.

“You’re kind of bossy, Perlman.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Elio smiled.

“And that’s only one of the reasons why I’m in love with you.”

Elio’s smile grew even wider, now reaching from ear to ear, as he entwined his fingers back with Oliver’s. He held his hands down to the mattress, not letting Oliver touch him as he leaned in and kissed the pulse on his neck.

“For what it’s worth.”

A kiss on the earlobe.

“I’m very much.”

A kiss on the back of his hairline, which meant that Elio had to press himself flush against Oliver to reach all the way to his nape.

“In love with you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being here for this little story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it <3 
> 
> Now I'm going to try and get back to the other Elio/Oliver story that I was _supposed to_ be writing when I came up with this one instead...
> 
> Until next time,
> 
> [angel-in-the-city](https://angel-in-the-city-blog.tumblr.com)


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